Five Times Susan Lupin Was Just A Muggle And One Time She Wasn't
by Ember Nickel
Summary: Sequel to "Sing, Sister Moon," c. 1960s-1971.


Francis does most of the chores in their flat. Not because they have any grand ideas about equality, but because most of the time it's faster for him, and when it isn't, Susan takes over. But if he's going to get the owls anyway, he might as well get the Muggle can immerse himself in one world or the other for days at a time and never leave the flat in either case, reading and underlining scrolls one week and paperbacks the next without thinking anything of it. It helps to keep up with both newspapers, not just for the crosswords, but to make sure he hasn't missed anything he's reading the _Daily Prophet_when Susan comes in and catches him staring at the same paragraph moment after moment, his eyes sliding over it in well-worn grooves until she offers to cook. His acceptance is supposed to be grateful, though it comes out as an "yralt."

**"**You all right there?"

**"**Fine!" he says, trying to fold the paper back up and more or less turning it inside out.

**"**Reading anything good?"

**"**I'm not sure what to make of it," he sighs. "There's a werewolf writing an editorial."**  
**  
"A werewolf?"

**"**Well, as a human this time of the month. Obviously. I don't think their paws could really hold a quill."

**"**Is this something I should know about?"

**"**Oh, they're registered and locked up and all that."

**"**And it writes in the paper? What's it writing about? Lower taxes on...what do werewolves eat?"

"Most of the time the same as anyone else, if a little rawer. No, this one is writing about astronomy."

"Astronomy."

His glance flickers back to it. "For some inexplicable reason."

"Well, I won't pretend your colleagues aren't a very...diverse...lot."

"He's not my _colleague_! He's off his skull!"

"Is he on someone else's skull? Literally, that is?"

"Well, no."

"Then that's progress, I should hope?"

"It is," Francis sighs. "In a way it's good that this one's spoken out. There's a whole slew of Muggles who if they knew about werewolves would just put words in their mouth and claim they've been misunderstood. This way we can remember what we have to deal with."

"Do...are werewolves a threat to Muggles?"

"If they were let loose, I suppose, they would be. But as I say, they're kept under control."

"So why's this one writing about astronomy?"

"Well, it's writing about a lot of things, I just take a professional interest in that part. Seems to think that whatever we do is worthwhile so long as it's useful-art and music, theoretical Arithmancy-maths to you-worthless. And astronomy," he smiles wryly, "is useful only insofar as we can predict full moons."

"Full moons?"

"When werewolves transform, I thought everybody knew that."

"Most of us don't know werewolves are out there."

"Most of you don't know witches are out there, either, but you know they ride brooms!"

"Is that your next book proposal, Muggle Myths about Magic?"

"That's not half-bad. You can co-write it."

"No thank you."

"Your loss. Well, I am going to write back to this idiot. In the paper, if I can help it. Practicality indeed, that's a whole swath of human experience you're throwing away..."

Susan lets him talk and goes to start dinner.

* * *

They sell the flat.

They move out of the city and into a little magical cottage, with a small bedroom for Remus and a crude basement. "It's a _dungeon_!" Susan protests.

"It isn't," Francis sighs. "I'll Apparate to Diagon Alley, see if we can find some Color-Changing Paint?"

"How much is that going to run?"

"Well...if you want it to be brighter, what else are you going to do? Bring down his little toys?"

"You know he's too old for those."

"And he's not going to _care_!"

"He will when you take him downstairs. Chain him up, or whatever it is you do to him!"

"I'm just following the regulations, this is the safest way-"

"Have they proven that? You're a scientist, run an experiment!"

"I can't-Su, I know he's little, but once he's transformed you would be helpless against him. So help me, I can't take that risk."

"And if I ask you to?"

"If we were found violating the law-"

"No one's going to find us because we live in the middle of nowhere!"

"Su, if this is about quitting your job-"

"Don't change the subject-"

"I can Apparate you to work, you can get there."

"Oh, _now _you tell me, after all my colleagues know I've moved away-"

"Su-"

"-that wouldn't be suspicious at all-"

"I tried! I tried to offer! And all you said is you wanted to stay home with our boy!"

"I hadn't expected him to go running off to boarding school, leave us-"

"Good," says Francis, "because he _won't_."

He grows a temper, with the pressure on each of his books to bring in money. Meanwhile he is doing any other odd jobs he can, by mail, editing his peers' articles with the promise of money. Often, this turns into him querying Susan as to the extent of Muggles' knowledge or rephrasing metaphors.

"No wonder your literature is so rubbish," she finally declares. "Half of this is just _wrong_."

"Obviously we can't all publish in the Muggle world, you'd need a proper Muggle to proofread novels and make sure nothing magical had snuck in, and that would break the Statute of Secrecy."

"Would it?"

"You can't just ring up an editor, "Hullo, I need you to disenchant my manuscript here.""

"Lest you've forgotten, there _are_Muggles who know about you already. Can't someone like me proofread something? A first draft, before you send it out to the Muggle press."

Francis pauses. "Of course."

"Seems the simplest solution."

"Are you serious? Because I can owl my contacts, they know people and would spread that around..."

"Every Galleon helps, I suppose."

And soon enough there's another peck of owls making their way to the lonely cottage. It's tiring work, at first, but some of the errors are so laughable she has an excuse to pay attention.

After a while people begin to Apparate in for practical advice; how to interview for a Muggle business, how to place a telephone call. Susan draws the line at how to ask a Muggle out and suggests asking Francis.

* * *

Remus has been surrounded by his father's books since they lived in London, and continues reading with the same voracity once they leave. He is easy in that sense to homeschool. Susan teaches him arithmetic and buys some old books of Muggle history to read, editing his short assignments. Francis teaches him science and Herbology. They both agree astronomy is something he can pick up for himself, or not.

He would be content with book learning, but Francis expects a more well-rounded education, and so Susan teaches him how to play a rudimentary trumpet. Physical education, too, is required. Susan is content to have him run and do sit-ups, in the absence of enough neighbors for a football team, and glares at Francis when he brings home an archery kit he swears was half-price. Doubly so when he falls and hurts his ankle the first time he tries.

But Remus is insistent, and for some reason or another Susan winds up trying to help him learn. His aim is good even if his pull is weak, and to her surprise she finds it comes naturally to her. So they stay out there day after day, firing into the distance.

* * *

When Remus is ten years old, Francis brings him to the States for business. They stop in Chicago, briefly, where the American football stadium Francis once snooped at has been replaced with a library, and then drive up to the observatory in Wisconsin.

Francis is giving a talk, and Remus spends the night. It is, he promptly declares in a postcard that he will beat home, the coolest building he's ever been to. The zodiacal signs carved outside, the rooms full of nothing but giant telescopes and floors that rise up off ground level, windows that look like portholes, a room of bunks, a secret library upstairs waiting to be discovered, sneaking down to the basement to see all the cool gadgets, being spooked by noises in the basement and fleeing upstairs, the view of the sky from the roof...it is enough to make anyone believe that stories might be real.

Francis does not let Remus _or_ Susan see how bittersweet he feels, and shoves the thought away until the owl comes a few months later.

"You made your peace with it, letting him go—"

"That was years ago! And you had me make my piece with keeping him here!"

"We all had to. He'll be so happy there, he'll be able to—to keep up with the other children, get a proper wand—"

"Other children? He won't know anyone."

"There are the cousins—"

"You know they all think he's a monster."

"Look, I don't know what we're arguing about. He's going, you've agreed, and he'll be back for Christmas and Easter."

"I know," she sighs. "I just didn't expect to lose him like this."

* * *

She goes back to work in the Muggle world, part-time. It's been so many years that no one is too surprised to see her come back, even if she never invites anyone over to her house.

She keeps on with her consulting for wizards, too, and is kept busier than she'd like to admit in Remus' absence. His quiet promise to write had been less for her sake than his own, she had thought from his nervous look boarding the train, and when there is nothing immediately she frets.

"Are you sure we shouldn't have gotten him his own owl?" she pleads. "With the extra Muggle money there'll be enough—"

"Of course there are school owls that he can use," Francis says, "everyone does—"

"Not everyone, you said—"

"First years don't want their own owls, they _poop_ all over the place. He'll be having fun, adjusting to the schedule—having classes and then assignments, not as free as it is back here."

When she does finally receive an owl she reads it several times, not waiting for Francis to translate out of the jargon that is already slipping in, until she drops it on the table so as to not crinkle it beyond legibility. Francis is out interviewing herbologists again; had he not been, she'd have knocked and had him read the letter right away. As soon as she was done poring over it, after the third time ought to have been good enough to share. Maybe the fourth.

Instead she waits until he returns, then thrusts it at him. "Gryffindor are—rash types sometimes, lots of leaders though. Dumbledore, the headmaster, was from there, good sort."

"The one who let him in."

"Yes. Let's see, now, the Blacks...are an old family. Bit quaint, though we all do have our strange birds. Sirius—ha! Another astronomical name. The 'Wolf Star' in Pawnee, although—"

"Francis," she interrupts, "our child has _friends_. His own age."

* * *

She stays awake until Francis Apparates back from St. Mungo's. There's no need for him to speak.

"Go back and—stay, be there for him tomorrow morning."

"I will," he promises, "I'll set an alarm."

"Stay the night there, you said there were guest accomodations."

"There's nothing I can do for him. I can't go _in_, and even from outside, he wouldn't recognize me."

"Are you sure there's nothing you can do?"

"No. I mean, yes, I'm sure. He's not himself—he won't be conscious of it right now, I'll Apparate over in the morning. You need to rest."

"What about sleep? Is he just going to have to sleep in the day tomorrow, if he's up all night? He'll throw a tantrum if he doesn't get enough sleep—"

"I'll ask, Susan. Rest."

Against her will she falls asleep and when she dreams, she does not remember her husband or her child at all. There is a man fighting a wolf, a dazzling sword, but he seems too busy to look at her. There is a girl who looks like Susan herself, but it seems impossible to believe she could ever have been that young. And then there is a creature—not human—half-obscured through a blur of light.

"Patience, daughter," it seems to whisper. "You know much of time. More than everyone can understand, right away."

"Nothing's changed! It's not fair, can't I—can't I help?"

"What has happened is strange. What has already been done is strange, and the most natural, and will settle all accounts in the end. Until then 'tis well not to fight strange with strange. For the time being there is enough—friendship and love, and someday foolhardiness, and then perhaps ingenuity are all plentiful even in the darkest nights. Or the brightest."

"Can't I talk to them?"

"That has always been your right. And theirs to talk to you."

"You know what I mean!"

"And faith will lead to understanding, in time and after. You know this."

A noise captures Susan's attention. Perhaps a note of music, growing louder to drown everything else out, louder still, and then it gives way to silence and she dreams in peace.

When she wakes up, she remembers nothing of the dream. Except for one word, nonsense really, tugging at the edge of her memory.

"Fireflowers," she repeats to Francis, after he brings Remus home. True to her prediction, the boy is exhausted, and is napping in his room as they whisper outside.

"What?"

"I don't know what they are, just—I've heard of them. Your Herbology books, maybe. From the mountains somewhere, could be liquefied to heal various diseases. Maybe they'd work."

"I don't think I've written about those."

"Well, can I send an owl to your collaborators? You've been writing people, you have some addresses."

"Of course," says Francis. "We can try."


End file.
